


Stone Cold (RAFAEL BARBA)

by RockWithItWriting



Category: Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit RPF
Genre: Barmaro, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 11:51:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7531705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RockWithItWriting/pseuds/RockWithItWriting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>requested by anonymous: Do you think you could write something for Barba based off the song “Stone Cold” by Demi Lovato? If not that’s totally cool and I understand. Thanks love! </p><p>word count: 1197</p><p>warnings: mentions of abuse, ptsd, depression, loneliness, alcoholism</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stone Cold (RAFAEL BARBA)

_stone cold, stone cold_

It was no secret that Rafael Barba came from el barrio. The Bronx. A not so nice neighborhood with a not so nice father and not so nice friends and a God damn smart mouth to top it all off.

All of that was practically written on Barba’s face.

And he was a product of it all. Rafael wore nice suits, Rafael went to fancy galas in tuxes too expensive to just be rentals and Rafael wooed coworkers and their wives and sometimes Rafael took his mother because she was from el barrio, too, and didn’t she deserve something fancy? And Rafael took his mother but he went home to an empty apartment and he didn’t even have a cat for crying out loud, so it was no wonder his bed was so cold.

Like Rafael himsel. He knew he was cold, too cold, too stoic but it fit his job. It fit his job and it worked for him and people didn’t question it because it was just Barba, that’s how he was, and then it was too late to change how he was acting and Rafael was stuck being a dick, some poor Cuban boy who dug his way out o el barrio and never looked back.

And of course, there was a reason Rafael was so cold.

_you see me standing, but i’m dying on the floor_

It all starts going to hell after Nick Amaro’s trial. Well, not Nick’s, but his father’s trial and Rafael’s fists stay glued together like he was born that way and maybe he was because Rafael can’t tell anymore, can’t tell when he’s dreaming and when he’s awake but one day he learns that when he’s dreaming it all feels normal.

The fist on his face, in his stomach, the words spat at him. It feels normal and Rafael supposes that’s because it is normal, to him, to Nick, because that’s what they grew up with and Rafael wonders why he still has nightmares when his father has been dead for fifteen years and he finds himself at a bar and Nick is there, too, and they’re both trading stories over whiskey.

Rafael seems so distant from it all as he speak with Nick, as if it had happened to a distant cousin and not himself, as if he didn’t carry the cigarette scars on his thighs and pocket knife carvings on the back of his hands and Rafael wonders if Nick can tell he put the red lines there because even though it’s been nearly thirty years they haven’t faded and Rafael has watched Nick look down at them multiple times while they’re at the bar but they’re talking about their fathers and neither bring it up.

And Rafael can see the tears in Nick’s eyes and he wonders why he’s not crying, but Rafael knows it’s because he’s in the bar, he’s in public and he’s with a coworker so he can’t cry, can’t let himself show that weakness. He begins to wonder how Nick sees him. If Nick sees what Rafael wants him to see: the strong Cuban ADA with no emotions except smug satisfaction and malice, a man who isn’t chained and gagged by his past, drowning himself in scotch every night just to sleep. Rafael wonders if Nick sees someone strong, even though his bones are turning to dust inside of him and he’s rotting from the inside out.

Rafael wonders if Nick is as lonely as he is. But he doesn’t have to wonder long because Nick is looking at him, Nick is looking at Rafael and reaching out and Nick is grabbing Rafael’s tie and Rafael is sure that it’s the copious amounts of alcohol but he leans into the gentle tug and then Rafael kisses Nick. Rafael hasn’t kissed someone in nearly five years and even then it wasn’t a male but kissing Nick is like kissing his childhood; familiar and warm but cold at the same time and Rafael nearly topples from his bar stool, trying not to seem eager but fuck, he is so eager and Nick is, too, knocking over his glass and grabbing Rafael by the hair hard enough to make the older man groan.

_stone cold, stone cold_

Rafael wonders what they’re supposed to do now. Nick is sleeping next to him- and who knew Nick was a power bottom?- and Rafael is still awake because Rafael isn’t sure what he’s feeling. It’s new, something he hasn’t felt since the day he mouthed off to the wrong person, got the shit beat out of him and the nurse at the ER sucked him off.

Sometimes Rafael wonders if he ever really left el barrio. Rafael wondered a lot of things, though. He wondered if Nick was conscious of the cuddling they were partaking in, he wondered if he would become his father, he wondered if anyone could ever love him or if it would all be like Nick; one night stands in his too expensive apartment with the lights off and last names and snark and bite in their words.

Would Rafael ever fall in love? He wasn’t sure. He was too cold, too lost, too wrapped up in his job to be thawed by love but he knows that nobody can love him but in a moment, one brief moment, he wonders if Nick could. Because Nick is pushing closer, Nick is wrapping his arms around Rafael and sighing his name and Nick is rubbing his chest, trying to get Rafael to sleep. Rafael wonders if Nick came from el barrio, or if Nick just came from a household under the thumb of his father.

Rafael wonders a lot of things, naked, under the sheets with Nick. He doesn’t sleep that night.

_maybe if i don’t cry i won’t feel anymore_

Or the night after that, when Nick comes over to his house. For months, Rafael barely sleeps. For months, he barely eats. He uses some of his ADA pay to get his suits tailored smaller because he’s lost so much weight and his mother is worried and Nick is worried and Carisi is worried and everyone is worried except for Rafael and Rafael doesn’t cry anymore.

He just calls Nick.

He calls Nick and they fuck and it’s good and Nick stays the night and Rafael makes breakfast but they’re not dating and Rafael wonders if Nick wants to date. But he doesn’t ask because Nick wouldn’t tell him, Nick would tell him what he wanted to hear and Rafael wasn’t sure what he wanted.

Did he want Nick, or did he just want the warm body? Either way, he was away, away from his neighborhood and his father and he hadn’t cried and Rafael was starting to lose all his other feelings and it reminded him of el barrio.

It was no secret that Rafael Barba came from el barrio. The Bronx. A not so nice neighborhood with a not so nice father and not so nice friends and a God damn smart mouth to top it all off.

All of that was practically written on Barba’s face.


End file.
